Free as a bird flying in the air – that is only possible with Wingsuit Flying. Here you are fully exposed to the elements, you can narrowly fly by rock edges or lawn with more than 100 km/h toward the abyss. Nothing for weak nerves!

Wingsuit Flying is sort of the pinnacle of parachutists: the extreme athlete rush off the plane, equipped with a specially made suit with surfaces of textile between the arms and legs. These surfaces act like wings, allowing the so-called “Birdmen” to perform partial horizontal aircraft movements.

The dream of flying has been on people’s minds since ancient times. Already in Greek mythology Icarus tried to fly with self-built wings. But his arrogance was fatal – he came too close to the sun, whereupon the bee wax of his wings melted and he finally crashed. The same fate befell the Austrian tailor Franz Reichelt in 1912, who was the first birdman of the presence, that jumped with his home tailored “bat suit” from the Eiffel Tower into death.

Even today Wingsuit Flying is a very dangerous activity, fatal accidents only happen quite severe, most recently in 2015 when the extreme athlete Dean Potter and Graham Hung were killed in Yosemite National Part in a jump from a 900m high cliff.

Nevertheless, Wingsuit Flying is still a fascinating sport in which the athletes fly close to 3 minutes, and thereby cover extreme distances up to 26 km. But take heed of this clip and let yourself be inspired!

Picture Source: Facebook / XTreme Video

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